No, Russia won’t exactly ban iPhone 6 next year

Reports from Russia on Tuesday said that the local government is getting ready to ban sales of iPhone 6, or other iOS devices, starting with January 1st, 2015, but that’s not exactly what’s going to happen, Phone Arena points out. Russia simply doesn’t want the cloud data of Russian smartphone users stored anywhere else than… Russia. The iPhone, and other Apple iOS and OS X devices, come with iCloud support and Russia will want iCloud data to be stored on servers in the country rather than abroad.

Similarly, Russia will probably want other companies selling devices with cloud abilities to have user data on Russia-based servers rather than U.S. ones.

That could mean that iPhones, iPads and Macs officially selling in Russia might ship with iCloud functionality disabled initially, or that Apple might consider building an operations station in the country, though this is just speculation at this point that can apply to every gadget maker interested in selling a device with cloud capabilities in the region.

Not to mention that iPhone users can also access personal data located on many other clouds, not necessarily iCloud, and the same goes for a variety of smart devices, including smartphones, tablets and computers. Furthermore, it’s not clear how and whether this new law will deal with non-Russian social networks that sore user data on non-Russian servers, including Facebook, Twitter, and many others.

But a specific iPhone sales ban in the region is not likely to enter into effect next year.